What you missed

January 2, 2018tinybows Leave a comment

Or should I say what I missed.

I’ve been gone over a year and a lot has happened in that time! Where do I start?

Chronologically I suppose. So I started my own business. Quit my job to focus on my business. Got new flooring throughout the house.

Went to universal (again, see my first trip here).

We lost one of our fur babies, The Little made it to the ripe old age of 18.

We then got a new addition to the family, another little black terror named Sabbath. He was only 8weeks old in this picture and already about the size of Little when she was fully grown

I got a new job (still in the beauty industry). Hurricane Irma ran off with our roof so that got replaced. I closed up shop on my business after a year (no one ever tells you working from home means there’s no such thing as time off). Oh and I chopped off all my hair and decided to dye it funky colors… cause when you turn 30 you stop caring what people think

And in between all that I managed to repaint or redo my office, the library, the dining room, and the master bath! So I haven’t really been idol I’ve just neglected posting anything about it. So let’s see if I can get this started back up!!!

Nevermore

October 7, 2016tinybows 2 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve made a wreath.

My last square one was a hit so I thought I would try it for my Halloween wreath.

Bits and bobs and bullet casings? Why not, it’s Halloween right

I got the form wrapped with some “spooky” (read black and white) ribbon and lace

Now on with the, fiddley bits, detritus, found objects and other accoutrements.

Need a hand?

Topped off with a motion activated crow from the dollar store that’s annoying as hell.

I had to learn how to tie a noose this week, something I thought I would never do.

But it was worth it for my spooky wreath.

So Vain

September 25, 2016tinybows 3 Comments

I have a new Vanity!!!

Ok, like most things I own it isn’t “new”, just new to me. I received this desk as a hand me down gift from Mr. Smith’s aunt.

The sewing machine from it still works by the way.

I got it sanded this spring but work stopped as soon as the heat hit and we were off running around the country.

I finally got around to working on it in earnest these past couple of weeks.

The verticals supports and panels weren’t sanding out as well as I liked so I opted to paint them.

The top and the drawer fronts however were a glorious grain so I decided to stain them as close as possible to my bedroom furniture.

We (my mother and I) lined the drawers with contact paper to protect them from the cosmetics that will go inside.

Beemer helped too

The hardware that was in the desk to begin with matched our furniture pretty well so I just cleaned it up and reattached it.

Before I set up my inordinate amount of makeup on the desk I placed a plastic sheet (it’s actually from a poster frame) on the desk to prevent makeup getting embedded in the wood grain.

I finally got to take all of my makeup out of bins and put it in real drawers in a proper vanity.

And yes that is a mechanics stool.

Screw this

September 17, 2016tinybows 2 Comments

In case you missed last weeks blog I had a project that was put on hold thanks to one stubborn screw that was giving me trouble. Thanks to some vice grips and wd40 that was sorted out and what follows is the project in its entirety.

We got this tiny rocking chair from my grandmother after it sat in her basement for goodness knows how long.

The upholstery was terrifying, there were dead spiders, but at least they were dead.

The wood base was still in excellent shape so there was no need to cut a new one. I used foam from an old mattress pad doubled over along with remnant fabric I had laying around to reupholster it.

I used the same method I did on our dining chairs which you can see here.

The chair itself was in pretty rough shape too, pegs were loose and screws were rusted. Hence the trouble we had getting the one screw out. The head rusted off leaving only the threaded portion.

We ended up drilling out around it, spraying wd40 in the hole and pulling it out with vice grips

I later filled the hole with wood filler so the new screw would have something to grip

After disassembling the chair it probably looked like a pile of fire wood to anyone else but the wood was still in excellent shape after a good sanding.

However even after sanding the pieces didn’t match. Some were a very light wood, some had a red hue to them. If I were staining it a dark color it wouldn’t have mattered but I wanted to keep the piece light so I opted to do a wash of paint.

I decided to try out target’s paint brand. I believe it’s made by valspar which is generally not my favorite but it worked well for the wash due to being a rather flat base.

Some new screws and wood glue to secure loose pegs and the chair is back to being a wonderful sturdy piece again. It’s an excellent edition to our library tucked over by the children’s books.

Jumping the gun

April 29, 2016tinybows Leave a comment

I was going to do a post on our coffee table but it’s in the process of drying in the garage so In anticipation of 100 followers on WordPress and in celebration of having hit 100+ likes on my Facebook this week, not to mention swiftly approaching 100 posts and two years with what started out as a little experiment, I thought I would round up some of my favorite posts. PS if you haven’t liked my Facebook page you totally should, I sneak in extra posts and updates there, so you should definitely click here. The hyperlinks are included in the text and pictures if you feel like checking out each post.

At the tippy top of the list will probably always be my series about my antique desk. I actually have another desk that will get a refinish this summer. I’m beyond excited for that.

If you want to see the whole series start here but here are the individual links

Part 1… Part 2… Part 3 … Part 4

And bittersweetly to accompany my desk is the post about my mother in laws chair

Thanks to being in a new house I’ve had lots of great projects recently, my particular favorites being the hallway full of frames.

And of course our new/old entertainment center soon to be joined by a mid century table which you may have seen a sneak peak of in one of my recent posts.

Let’s not forget about remodeling that bathroom, that was pretty awesome.

I’ve also got to give love to my Halloween makeup posts

Of which this past fall’s look went a wee bit viral on Pinterest… Oh right did I mention I’m on Pinterest…. I’m on it a lot my username is ItsybitsyBows… Cause TinyBows was taken

And last but not least an early favorite is my clock turned lantern.

If you guys have any projects you want to see drop me a line in the comments.

A house is not a home…

April 3, 2016tinybows Leave a comment

…without a wreath. I’ve made lots of wreaths. I think I’ve got at least two blog posts on wreaths. You can find them here and here. I figure now that Mr. Smith and I are finally settled into our own home it’s time I made a wreath for us.

I used a pretty basic wreath form. As you can see here I already wrapped a branch with some black twine.

I then just wrapped a couple of sections with some burlap ribbon to serve as my base.

Then it was time to pick out flowers and bits and bobs.

I felt like this flower needed a little embellishment so I added some hands of a clock.

In fact I added the gears in another section. It’s the clock that I turned into a lantern last year, which you can see here.

I also warped a few keys into the vines

And easy as pie we have our own wreath for our own house. Finally

Hasty

January 31, 2016tinybows 2 Comments

I literally just finished doing this. I’m still covered in paint and am finally out of a cross legged position only to find myself pinned down by The Little.

Might as well make the most of it and do a post while I’m unoccupied. Thank goodness for mobile blogging. I was going to do a post about the ugliest cheese cake known to man.

My husband got me a kitchen aid stand mixer. It’s marvelous but there is a reason I don’t do food blogs. I love to cook and it usually tastes great but that doesn’t mean it’s pretty. Thus was the story with my improvised salted caramel cheesecake. Essentially a basic cheesecake with brown sugar and a smidge of salt in the crust and a gooey caramel topping with salt sprinkled on it.

It was hideous and only lasted two days

On to much prettier things.

Our bar is a giant white monolith and our kitchen doesn’t have much character what with being all black and white. I’ve introduced little pops of red inspired by our China which was handed down from my husband’s great grandmother. It’s wonderful paired with my mom’s Avon glass collection she passed on to me.

And we have somehow managed to have a chalkboard theme in the kitchen… It’s on mugs & glasses, picked out by Mr. Smith but I ran with it and got canisters and even have the theme in the pantry.

So now that I’ve got the breakfast nook furnished and stools for the bar we’ve decided to expand the red and chalkboard theme

(Ok, admittedly the nook still needs some curtains. It’s one of the only rooms that will get them.)

After prepping the area with tape the brackets to the bar got the red treatment.

I thought it looked better even after one coat

About four coats later

Here is a tip, if you happen to get paint on any hard surface (laminate, hardwood, tile, stone, cured paint) you don’t want it on, magic erasers will take it right off even if it has dried.

After a little clean up our bar is looking pretty great.

I’m going to wait a couple weeks for the paint to cure before we start doodling on it

Nothing is Impossible

January 23, 2016tinybows 3 Comments

This was a wonderfully interesting week.

There was the usual work week and we got our last few pieces of furniture in buuuuuut…. I also got to volunteer with the show Restaurant Impossible.

It was literally in BFE (a colorful initialism for the middle of no where) took about an hour to get there.

Admittedly I’ve never actually seen the show, but I’m familiar with the concept from seeing a couple of episodes of Hotel Impossible.

A chef (in this case the host Robert Irvine) comes in and revamps the menu and a crew of designers and builders come in and overhaul the restaurant.

I didn’t get to take any pictures while I worked (it’s in the contract you sign when you volunteer) but here are a few that have been released on their official social media outlets.

Here is the inside of the bar once everything, excluding the myriad of stickers, was hauled out. My mother and I later had the fun job of peeling down and washing off the stickers… It wasn’t all maidly duties though. I have sanded more chairs than I could keep track of and painted even more boards.

Here are some of my fellow volunteers along with the designers Lynn in the middle back and Sookie in the blue jean shirt. Sookie and her husband started as volunteers and were later hired on as regular crew.

And!!! The new and definitely improved name for the BFE bar. Like I said I can’t show you anything else and I can’t technically tell you anything else though I think it’s safe to reveal that the decor shall feature a dog named woody, and he is wonderful. So the next time you’re in BFGeorgia stop by Pointers.

Broken Glass

December 14, 2015tinybows 6 Comments

I got an early Christmas present. It’s called a kinkajou, and no I’m not referring to the furry forest dwelling creature. It’s a handy little mechanism for cutting glass bottles.

It’s a pretty simple thing when you get down to it. It’s just two sets of rollers that clamp together around the bottle with a small scoring blade attached to one.

The rollers then allow you to turn the bottle scoring it all the way around. The tricky part is getting the start and end points to line up.

You then attach the included bands around the bottle and alternate hot and cold water along the score line to expand and crack the bottle along the score.

It took my first bottle a long time to finally break all the way through. That’s partly because my score lines ended about 1/4 inch away from one another. Partly because it turns out the glass was incredibly thick.

Luckily even if your score lines are a little off (like mine were) they include a tool to snap off any jagged pieces. Unfortunately my glass was so thick this little tool wouldn’t even fit over it so I had to improvise a bit.